


Trust, A Dangerous Five Letter Word

by intrvrtd



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Intrigue, N7 Shepard Backstory, Nothing OOC, Romance, Trust Issues, Very Slight Canon-Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrvrtd/pseuds/intrvrtd
Summary: Miranda Lawson is shaken after rescuing her sister and discovering Niket's betrayal. Trust doesn't come easily to Miranda and after being betrayed by her oldest childhood friend she wonders if she could ever truly trust anyone. She turns to one man for comfort, Commander John Shepard, the man she is falling in love with, and she learns why trust is difficult for him as well.This story will provide some backstory for Shepard's early days as an N7, the game really doesn't give us much about it and I decided to create some, I must emphasize nothing will be OOC for Shepard or Miranda I stayed true to the characters as much as possible
Relationships: Miranda Lawson/Male Shepard
Kudos: 4





	Trust, A Dangerous Five Letter Word

Trust, such a simple little word, yet it can be a very dangerous one as well. Several thoughts were racing through Miranda Lawson’s head as she sat in her office finishing up her reports on the Illium missions. Her sister was safe and relocated and they had even finally met face to face thanks to Shepard’s encouragement, but that’s not what dominated the thoughts of the Normandy’s XO. Niket’s betrayal is what has been haunting her, she had trusted him, her oldest childhood friend and he sold her out to her own monstrous father, they very man she escaped from so many years ago. Niket knew of Miranda’s harsh, loveless childhood where she was nothing but a perfect tool to ensure Henry Lawson’s legacy, she ran when she was finally old enough to do so and upon learning that her father wasted no time creating a replacement, she wasted no time in liberating her new sister. It was this knowledge that disturbed Miranda the most, Niket knew it all and in the end he still took her father’s money, she killed him, the only loose end in securing Oriana’s safety, it was an easy choice she truly had no regrets, Niket deserved his fate. This shattered trust hurt Miranda far more than she cared to admit she needed to talk to the commander now more than ever, he came with her on this mission no one else, just the two of them, he was the only one she trusted to help her in this matter, “there it is, that word again, trust” Miranda sighed. She opened her omni-tool and stared at the picture that Shepard had sent her, it was of Oriana waving with her back to the Illium sunset, she realized that he must have snapped the photo with his omni-tool as they got onto the elevator to leave, she smiled wide thinking of the thoughtful little thing Shepard did, she never had an actual photo of her sister before just surveillance footage.

It was getting late in the evening and Miranda’s reports were long since filed and Shepard still hadn’t poked his head into her office which had become quite the routine each night, especially since a month ago when the pair officially became a couple. She was now growing a bit concerned after saving her sister they had a follow up mission on Illium to recruit an asari justicar, the mission was a success of course and Samara was surely going to be a tremendous asset to the crew but this mission didn’t go flawlessly. They had tracked her through an Eclipse base where they buying red sand from a crew of volus smugglers, and in the final firefight Shepard had been caught inbetween some exploding containers of red sand and he ended up of inhaling quite a large dose of it. The commander had assured Miranda that everything was fine as he always did, but after reporting to the med bay hours ago she still hadn’t seen him. Patience had never been Miranda Lawson’s strong suit and she’d be the first to admit it, even more so when it came to the well being of the man she cared for so deeply, as she was about to leave her office to find him and almost as though he knew she was looking for him, she got a little ping on her omni-tool.

_Miranda_

_Sorry I couldn’t make it by, Doctor Chakwas ordered me straight back to my quarters for 24 hours bed rest, the pushy woman even escorted me back to my cabin to ensure I actually went. She even went so far to conspire with EDI to notify her if I leave my quarters. I figured you might be worried but I’m fine inhaling that much red sand is disgusting but the doc flushed most of it out of my system I’ll be ok._

_I really wanted to ask how you were? I know what happened with Niket couldn’t have been easy, and how are you doing after that little talk with your sister, was she shocked, and will you two talk again? Ugh so many questions… It’s only been like four hours since we were on Illium and I know its cheesy as hell but I miss you already_

_John <3 _

Miranda smiled, it was cheesy, incredibly so, but she didn’t care she loved that this small side of the commander was just for her and her alone, also the simple knowledge that he missed her too, she felt like she was nearly floating on air as she made her way to elevator to his personal quarters. As Miranda rode the impossibly slow elevator to the captain’s quarters her mind wandered at just how things with Shepard hat gotten to this point. She had spent two years rebuilding him physically and learning every detail of his past and personality, she had never known someone so intimately without ever holding a single conversation with them. Then came the day he awoke on the Lazarus Station and there was pang in her heart when she thinks of it now, she nearly lost him that day. When this mission first started there was some tension between the two of them and she could hardly blame him, literally coming back from the dead and in the hands of Cerberus, a group he had fought against in the past it was more than most people could handle. In fact she was quite impressed how quickly he adapted to his new surroundings and after a few missions the tension disappeared and was replaced with mutual respect of their skills in the field. This respect turned into friendship and led to more frequent interactions with eachother in their off-duty hours, most of these occurred in Miranda’s quarters and the conversations were no longer about the mission but more of a personal nature. Then came the day when Shepard’s words struck a chord in her, Miranda hadn’t had many relationships over her life, a fact that would shock most people given how attractive she was but in truth her first love was always her work. She remembered the day so vividly, she was facing the window doubting herself and her accomplishments thinking they were all thanks to her bastard father and her perfect genes when Shepard said something she didn’t expect and something no one had ever said to her.

“So you’re saying I can’t admire your body or your mind, you give your father too much credit, yeah your looks, your intelligence, your biotics, they may have given you a head start in life, but what you did with them was all you, not your father, those are your achievements” he said while moving closer to her

Miranda was floored by his declaration, all of his kind words were laced with sincerity so she knew he wasn’t just saying this to make her feel better. But the one part her mind stayed focused on was the “admire your body” she briefly lost her trademark self-control and blurted out “Thank you Shepard, I’ve never thought of it that way, but perhaps I wouldn’t mind you admiring my body, in fact I was hoping you were” she replied seductively

Miranda remembered that moment so vividly, Shepard closed the distance between them and kissed her, the move was bold and confident, Shepard knew what he wanted and he went for it, a quality that turned Miranda on incredibly. That was the moment where their relationship started, this beautiful, senseless, exciting relationship, the only moment that was any better was the first time they made love, they decided to book a room on Illium, the whole ship was bugged with cameras and microphones and while her relationship with Shepard didn’t violate any Cerberus guidelines she still didn’t want the organization to have video footage of her fucking the commander. On more than one night she found her own hand exploring her body thinking of that blissful night and how she craved another as soon as possible. Miranda’s thoughts were interrupted by the ding of the elevator as she reached Shepard’s quarters. She walked straight into his quarters, he was her lover they were well past the point of knocking.

“Well Miss Lawson I was hoping to see you tonight how are you holding up?” Shepard asked as he lounged in his bed

Miranda shuddered slightly as she heard him call her “Miss Lawson” she was definitely never going to let him know how much it turned her own when he called her that “Are you alright Shepard, I got your message?” she asked

“Oh the red sand, I’m fine really, you know how the doc is she can be a bit overprotective of me I’d say” he grumbled

“On the contrary I would argue you aren’t concerned enough with your own well-being” she contested with her own voice dripping for genuine concern for the commander

“Really, I promise I’m fine Miranda, I’d tell you if I wasn’t” he said sincerely while waving her over to the bed where he was sitting

“How are you doing, I mean really? I know everything that went down with NIket had to be rough” he asked

“It was, I don’t even regret killing him, does that make me some kind of monster?” she asked

“No, not at all, I would have done the same in your position” he stated “in fact I had to do something like that before” he stopped himself realizing how much he nearly revealed to her

“Oh” was all she managed not wanting to press him “my biggest regret was trusting him at all in the first place, trusting people, all it does is…”

“Get yourself and those around you killed” he finished for her and she nodded her head in response

Shepard sat there staring into her steel blue eyes, the eyes that comforted him so much ever since the day he awoke on the Lazarus Station, he found himself lost in them but at the same time so safe in them. He also thought about the fact that Miranda brought him along on the mission with her sister the two of them did it alone, no one else, not even Jacob. It dawned on him that Miranda didn’t trust anyone when it came to her sister, she trusted Niket and that backfired but she did trust Shepard with it, she had him at her side every step of the way as she led the mission. Shepard realized maybe she didn’t want to talk about it, perhaps she came to him to look for a distraction from the day’s events, in that moment he knew cared for Miranda deeply and it was time to extend her some of the same trust she had shown him.

Shepard began to speak “you’ve said in those two years rebuilding me that you’d come to know everything about me, but I’m betting there is a large blank gap in my service history that you had no way to explain right? Almost like after I joined the N7 program there was a period of nearly three years where it was almost like I didn’t even exist at all?”

Miranda sat silently, she was loathe to admit it but there was a large chunk of his service history with the N7’s that she couldn’t access even with Alliance and Cerberus data combined it was a small failure that infuriated her, she had long ago given up on figuring out that little mystery and now it seemed Shepard was going to volunteer this information to her “Yes I had detailed your life precisely up until 2174 where you essentially disappeared entirely as least according to any records I could find”

“Hold on” he said as he tapped on his omni-tool and a smug grin escaped the corner of Shepard’s mouth “ok before I said anything else I wanted to disable all the bugs in my cabin, it goes without saying I don’t think Cerberus needs to hear what I’m about to tell you, well knowing the work you’ve done for Cerberus over the years let me ask, have you ever heard of a group called Section 99?”

“Yes, it was supposedly an Alliance black ops counter-intelligence unit, but by and large most people believe the group doesn’t exist at all and most agree the whole thing is just an extranet rumor, so is this the part where you tell me you were a member of Section 99?” She asked playfully, beginning to doubt the sincerity of the conversation

“No I wasn’t just a member, it was my unit, I led it” he stated matter of factly

Miranda focused her gaze on him and raised one eyebrow, she was using all her years of operative training searching his face for any signs of deception and when she found none she simply said “ok I’m listening”

“Well there were eight of us, Admiral Cassandra Howe chief of Alliance Intelligence put me in command I was only a lieutenant at the time and I answered only to her. We were the best at what we did hacking, surveillance, sabotage, false information, and the occasional assassination, everything we did was off the record, if we were ever caught the Alliance would disavow us and deny any involvement with our actions” he stated and paused

“Makes sense Cerberus functions in a similar fashion” she replied saying nothing more but after enough silence passed “John? What is it?” she muttered

“Nothing sorry, I’ve just never told anyone about this before” he replied with his eyes down on the ground “Let me tell you a couple of the more interesting stories” his eyes once again meeting hers

“In 2174 do you remember the assassination of Vice Minister Tarrath of the Batarian Hegemony?” he asked

Miranda nodded in affirmation “Well that was me, at the time the Hegemony’s prime minister was weak and incompetent, needless to say the Alliance wanted him to stay in power as long as possible but we received intel that Tarrath had growing popularity among the batarian military and we intercepted some data that revealed he was planning a coup in June 2174. Vice Minister Tarrth had a villa on Khar’shan located in the Narakki mountains, it was there that he was planning the final stages of his attack with his most trusted military commanders. I was sent in to kill him, I was perched on a ridge with my sniper rifle for 37 hours straight waiting for a shot, at the time I was on a dangerous amount of stimulants just to keep myself awake and sharp and on the 38th hour he finally appeared on the balcony…” Shepard paused “his wife and three children were standing there with him, I took the shot without hesitation”

“You did the right thing John, a resurgent Hegemony could have led to a second major conflict with the batarians which could have resulted in thousands of deaths, I would have taken the shot too” she assured him and laced her fingers around his and gave them a little squeeze

“I agree it was worth it, to be honest I’d do it again if I had to, and I knew you would understand” he said squeezing her hand back

“Hmm well this other story I have, it’s a little funnier but I think you’ll appreciate it” he said with his normal smile returning to his face

“Well now commander most people would tell you that I don’t really have sense of humor so your next story may be wasted on me” she grinned at him. Miranda knew her reputation as the ice queen, the cold and uncaring bitch but Shepard knew her better, he knew what was beneath her professional surface and much to her surprise she found Shepard’s occasionally droll yet self-deprecating sense of humor quite enjoyable, she slid one her legs over his and leaned her head onto his chest to listen to his next story

“This one you probably don’t know anything about but I assure you its 100% true, in 2175 we hacked the Salarian STG network” he said proudly

“Seriously?” was all she could mutter “I mean the STG has the most advanced network in all of council space, hell they practically wrote the book on espionage”

“Yeah the salarians may have written the book on it but me and my team decided to add a few chapters to said book.” He chuckled “honestly this wasn’t even an official mission Admiral Howe knew nothing about it, but you know how it is when your young, we were all cocky and arrogant little shits and we were so tired of the smug salarians we wanted to take them down a peg and show humans were just as good if not better.” His smile growing wider at the pleasant memory

“Color me impressed Shepard the STG is no joke did you get in trouble with Alliance command for that one?” she asked

“No not all and that’s the best part I reported the whole thing to Howe just to cover my own ass, she even went so far as to say she was impressed by my initiative, but no, Alliance command didn’t even know that we were behind it, we actually made it look like the whole cyber attack was the work the turian group Blackwatch, in fact to this day there is still a bit of a rift between the two black ops groups.” He beamed proudly and paused with his grin now turning mischievous “it took them three whole days restore their network after we flooded with asari, elcor, and hanar porn”

The pair broke out in hysterical laughter and for the first time all day Miranda had forgotten all about Niket’s betrayal and nearly losing her sister. Once the laughter died down Miranda decided to ask what happened with his unit since they were so successful, what changed and how did he end up serving as Anderson’s executive officer on the Normandy it was such a strange transition from working as a spy in a black ops group to being the XO of the Alliance flagship.

“So what happened to Section 99 and how did you end up on the Normandy?” she felt comfortable enough at this point to just bluntly ask

“Would you believe me if I told those two things are related to eachother?” he asked

Miranda raised one eyebrow again with a questioning look “try me“ she said

Shepard decided to lay all the way down on the bed and motioned for Miranda to do the same, she did but as her head hit the pillow she felt something strange, lifting up the pillow she found a carnifex handcannon.

“You sleep with a gun under your pillow commander?” she asked

“All my years of training, all those years with Section 99, not to mention coming back from the dead on a Cerberus ship… what can I say it’s made me a little paranoid” he replied not making eye contact with her

Miranda seemingly unfazed by this discovery “Understandable, you know I sleep with the Kassa Locust you stole from Hock’s vault and gave to me under my pillow” she replied she let out a small giggle “we really aren’t so different are we Shepard?” she asked

“I suppose not, I wouldn’t have admitted that seven months ago when I first came this ship but its true, the work we’ve done over the years isn’t even that different, Alliance or Cerberus I’ve come to see it as pretty just two sides of the same coin” he stated and sighed “where were we anyway, oh yeah the downfall of Section 99 and the Blitz”

Miranda nodded curling up her body next to Shepard’s

Shepard continued is story “as you are no doubt aware Fehl Prime is one the top pharmaceutical manufacturing colonies the Alliance has, well in early 2176 medical transport ships were being taken out left and right, and one time they even took out an Alliance escort with them, foolishly Alliance brass thought it was simple pirates” he scoffed

“Of course they did” Miranda said smirking at their stupidity

“But I knew it was something more than that, the hits were too clean and efficient for pirates, well after a few months of this Admiral Howe sent my team in to put a stop to this, we started flying one of the medical transport ships ourselves and simply waited for them to attack and one day they finally did. An unidentified vessel opened fire and quickly took down our shields they began boarding the ship and to my surprise they were asari and were wearing Eclipse armor.”

“Eclipse? Taking out medical ships? That isn’t their MO” she asked

“No, it certainly isn’t, but I learned later they weren’t Eclipse they were actually asari commandos dressed up as Eclipse. Apparently some of the matriarchs in the Asari Republics were growing tired of Section 99’s antics and this whole mission was a trap for me and my team from the beginning, but we were also betrayed by one of our own, that was how the commandos boarded the ship and got the jump on us” he said with sadness and anger radiating from his voice

“The whole team was dead except for me and Jones our demolition expert, the ship was lost, I had taken out a handful of the commandos but we were outgunned and outnumbered we were heading for the escape pods and I was listening to one of the radios I took off of a dead commando and I heard it”

 _“Shepard is our target he's heading for the escape pods,_ _do not shoot Jones, I repeat do not shoot Jones!_ ” _an unknown asari said over the radio_

“Jones was always a rat, I knew it from the day I met him but he was damn good at his job, and if I’m being honest none of us in Section 99 were what you would describe as _good people_ but I have to admit I still wasn’t ready for his betrayal, and the worst part is he only did it cause he wanted to be in charge of the unit and he betrayed us to the asari simply cause he had a weakness for those blue bitches” Shepard growled

“It’s not that different from Wilson on Lazarus Station I imagine” Miranda stated “I never trusted him for a single moment but he was good at his job and you knew from the second you met him that he was looking for chance to take you out” she said

“Yeah it was just like that” he sighed “we scuffled and I made it into one of the pods and hit the launch button, I was picked up by some turian mercs and they took me to Omega where I tried to report in to Admiral Howe but I found I she had just died in a mysterious shuttle accident” he said sadly

“I assume this was most certainly not an accident” she asked

“No, only a fool would believe in coincidences like that, so I was fucked I had no leads, my commanding officer was dead, I was the only one left, I knew what I had to do Section 99 was going to be liquidated the team would never be rebuilt, I had one mission left, kill Jones, but I had no idea where to find him. The next morning nursing my hangover my omni-tool pinged, it was the Shadow Broker offering me the location of Jones, I asked what the price of this information was and the scrambled voice told me it was free of charge and the broker only asked that some day in the future he may ask a favor of me and that I remember how he helped me with this. I agreed of course offers like this are always dangerous and even I knew the Shadow Broker was not one to be trifled with but I was angry and I wanted vengeance so I accepted” he stated

“I was told he was on Elysium, so when I arrived planetside I immediately began going to every exotic bar near the spaceport, I knew Jones, he was going straight for some of the blue bitches he was so fond of, and wouldn’t you know it he was in the first bar I checked. After the bartender confirmed that he was in one the private rooms in the back I made my way there, I kicked in the door and found a nude asari straddling his lap.” Shepard laughed “All he managed to get out was” _“John wai…”_ “before I shot him in the head and ran out the back door of the bar.” He paused and continued

“Now the rest of the story you already know, as I was running towards the spaceport I heard the alarms sounding and the planetary defenses activating, I rallied what troops they had and held off the batarians until reinforcements came. After my _heroics_ ” Shepard cringed as he said that last word “the Alliance wanted to make me some kind of poster boy and the best way to do that was put my face front and center of the Alliance fleet on the newly built prototype Normandy as Captain David Anderson’s second in command.” He said as he ran his fingers through Miranda’s hair

“Wow” was all Miranda managed to utter at first

Shepard let out a small but forced laugh that only indicated how nervous he was “you know no living person besides me knows the stories I just told you” he exhaled a large breath “this knowledge could easily get me killed” he said

Miranda stared into his eyes and she knew full well all the implications of what it meant when Shepard revealed this information to her, she could use it against him, if word got out to the Alliance he could be court martialed and executed, it was gesture of trust she did not expect “thank you for trusting me with this and simply being there for me Shepard” was all she could think of to say and she pressed a soft kiss against his lips

“Please you showed me a similar amount of trust today by including me on the mission with your sister I know all too well what she means to you, this was the least I could do” he replied

She wrapped her arms tightly around him and squeezed and said “we should both be getting to bed it’s been a long day”

“Stay here with me” he said

“Tempting but not tonight I just need a little time alone to decompress and think” she said and kissed him again

As Miranda managed to pry herself out of his bed she walked to the elevator, she was stopped by Shepard’s voice “wait, here take this,” he handed her the carnifex he had been keeping under his pillow and Miranda gave him a confused look

“I don’t think I’ll be needing this anymore” he stated “I’m pretty confident that my XO is watching my back”

“She is” was her reply, she smiled at this second gesture of trust and when she was nearing the elevator Shepard called out to her one more time

“You once told me you didn’t have that fire, that spark, that would make people be willing to follow you into hell itself, that’s not true you have it, I’d follow you anywhere Miranda” he stated

Miranda froze at his words and all the hidden meanings behind them, she could only muster one response as she glanced over her right shoulder and stepped onto the elevator “likewise John”

_They both knew how dangerous trust can be, they both learned hard lessons in their life that screamed at them that this thing between them could only end badly. But it didn’t matter they were partners on the battlefield, they were partners in the bedroom, they were becoming partners in life and they trusted eachother implicitly_

**Author's Note:**

> For any Star Trek Deep Space Nine fans out there I'm sure you noticed that Section 99 was obviously inspired by the Starfleet black ops group Section 31. If anyone thinks the added backstory I gave Shepard was too much please let me know I'd love to get fans opinions on this
> 
> As always any comments are welcome


End file.
